In this photo Tuesday, May 23, 2017, photo, customers shop at Best Buy in Cary, N.C. Best Buy reports financial earns on Thursday, March 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)Best Buy is reporting surging sales at stores and it’s topped Wall Street’s profit and revenue expectations for the fourth quarter. The consumer electronics retailer also provided a 2019 outlook above analysts’ estimates.
Sales at comparable stores jumped 9 percent during the critical period that includes the holidays. That’s a big turnaround from a year earlier when the figure dipped 0.9 percent for the consumer electronics retailer.
Chief Financial Officer Corie Barry said in a statement that Best Buy was able to benefit from several factors, including the hardships of some of its competitors. Rival hhgregg Inc. announced in April that it was going out of business and closing all of its stores. And last March RadioShack announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in just over two years
For the quarter ended Feb. 3, Best Buy posted net income of $364 million, or $1.23 per share. That compares with earnings of $607 million, or $1.91 per share, a year ago.
Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were $2.42 per share, blowing past the per-share projections from analysts of $2.05, according to Zacks Investment Research.